Everyone who moves through downtown Atlanta today passes places where in 1906, innocent Black men and women were chased and beaten to death by a mob of 10,000 white men.
Their next target was the “Crystal Palace,” an opulent barbershop where Alonzo Herndon made his first fortune catering to white elites. Poorer white people couldn't stomach such success by a Black man and shattered the place, Williams says.
That's where the mob, now “deputized” as law enforcers, came searching for weapons on the third day, ransacking businesses and pulling women and children from their homes. One white officer was killed and some 250 Black people were arrested, including 60 who were convicted. Not one white person was held responsible for any of the deaths, community organizer Ann Hill Bond said.
Once governor, Smith signed laws that kept most Black people from voting for another half-century. Thousands abandoned Atlanta, which became two-thirds white by 1910, the Census showed. City officials cited the need to avoid violence as they imposed segregation on neighborhoods, including “Sweet Auburn” Avenue, which became a model of African American economic self-sufficiency. Herndon gave up barbering to become one of the nation's leading insurers for Black families.
The massacre remains “terrifying” to playwright Marlon Burnley, whose one-act play will be performed by the Out of Hand Theater company at September's Equitable Dinners. Williams gets a variety of reactions on his tours. For college students “it’s like discovering fire,” he says. Older Atlantans are surprised they never heard the details before. “People who have skin in the game in the city” — civic boosters and people who run non-profits or work in politics — often get squeamish, he says.
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